Holiday Quilts

Contrary to the post title, these are not Christmassy quilts, but rather ones given as gifts. In early November, in classic-late form, I decided that my boys needed new bed quilts. Since my daughter has been sewing, she has made herself 2 that fit her bed, on top of the one I made her 10 years ago. My boys have not had new quilts made in over 10 years. I can date it because I did not quilt either of them, and I have been long arming slightly over 10 years. 

The main goal was that they were easy enough that I would actually finish them, and suitable for an E2E quilting. There wasn't time for custom, besides I wanted a fleecy or minky backing which really doesn't need overquilting.

Here are the 2 patterns I came up with. They use many of the same fabrics, but the second also used lots of my scraps. These are my EQ renditions. 

My 17 yr old has a queen sized bed, so it did not call for microscopic piecing. When I shopped for the fabric, I did not envision the orange/red taking over the quilt as much as it did, but that is life. I should have used more greenish greens rather than the yellowy green.

 It's quilted in a black thread, and has black fleece I bought back last winter for a whopping $1 a yard! My hope was that the black Omni thread would taint the quilt darker.

 His walls are a nice peacock blue, which does match one of the blue stripes in the quilt. In hindsight, I should have used more blue shades I think.

The other quilt is only for a twin bed, thankfully! I have done this pattern previously. It is a tad finicky because it requires partial seams for each block, but these blocks piece quickly. The gray matches his curtains, and the pale blue is the color of the walls.

 Initially I really wanted to use that 6-sided star pantograph, but the thread broke early in on my first pass, and I realized how hard the straight lines were to do well when they show as much as they do on the solid fabric. I quickly ripped it out and switched to the curves. This Orange Peel pattern quilts up fast and looks good. The back is a lush silver minky.

Both quilts were bound on the machine. It's far from my forte, but considerably faster than doing it by hand. With black binding fabric, all the wobbles barely show anyway.

 Here's the back...

 And, another happy customer.

And one last E2E from December (same pattern as the first quilt shown). This is a top my mom made for somebody. It also has a soft fleece backing which shows off the pattern nicely.

I just finished a gorgeous Sue Garman Ruffled Roses that I will share next post. I'm about to start my own personal show quilt, so I may not have pics of a client quilt for a few weeks. Have a great end to 2019-

Late Fall CatchUp

Time flies, so they say, whey you are busy doing other things. Or when other things manage to consume your usual overflowing energy. I was looking back over some photos and realized that I have several quilts not blogged about.

This is called The Blue Collection by Maggie Walker. I have quilted at least 2 of these previously, and this one was just as pretty, and just as beautifully made.

It takes what feels like that proverbial lifetime to outline quilt all of the appliques and frames/borders, then the the fun quilting can begin. If you are thinking that the appliques look extra poofy, it is because this is double batted with Hobbs 80/20 and wool. It is a great combination for the applique quilts or for any show quilt.

 The background quilting is not the star of the quilt, but I still want it to look attractive. It needs to be dense so that the appliques pop.

There is also detail quilting added to most of the vases, as they are large appliques -- too large to just leave unquilted. It would not wear well with time to not quilt on them. Plus, it provides a place to further define the shape or style of the vase.

Here's a cute wallhanging. It's bright and colorful, and somewhat modern. For some reason, the modern quilts just paralyze my natural creative tendencies. It sat on my machine for several days. I almost removed it because I just couldn't agree with my head on what to do.

 Then I went into the studio, and just said "Go with your first instinct". It is rarely all that wrong. And this is what I did. Mostly I just wanted some texture. Lots of texture.

 The quilting on the feathers is done in a bold black thread. It unifies all of the feathers together.

 Here is a peek at the backside.

 My last quilt to share is the final one sent to me by Erin. Remember a purple Nearly Insane from 1-2 months ago?...this is her handiwork. She does beautiful piecing. This one I saved for last because I knew it had that massive blank space in the center. That takes both courage and planning...LOL!

 It turned out beautifully with a combination of crosshatching, feathers and linework.

 The one thing I will say is that I quilted this (the white parts) with an Omni thread. I chose this because it is rather traditional, and this thread more resembles a cotton than most I use. NEVER again, though!! It drove me nuts with lint and linty clumps. It works fine for an edge to edge, but this level of custom took nearly a dozen bobbins.

 It's hard to tell but this is a log cabin quilt, with a medallion center.

 Quilts like this that quilt down the diagonal really take a LOT of hours. There is a TON of rolling the quilt back and forth and stop and start. Beginners likely don't realize how much time that can consume.

 The swirly fill was chosen because these red fabrics were fairly printed AND because the seams were all pressed out, not leaving a ditch. Had the piecing have pressed to the side, I'd have done a template based line pattern there instead.

 Oh, so pretty...Hopefully I can see this one bound and laying pretty on a bed.

 And one last backside for the road...

See you next time I have pretties to share.